Crohn's has definitely provided me with a life full of thrilling symptoms. Between the crippling stomach pain, unpredictable sense of urgency, and the seemingly endless length and number of trips to my personal office, the bathroom, it has definitely been life altering. Oh I almost forgot the continuing problem of being woken up throughout each night in order to rush to my thrown instead of being able to sleep, and my new found favorite symptom: fevers.
For a couple of months now, I've had a miserable amount of fevers. I only began logging them at the begging of July, once I figured out they were going to become a trend, but they began to appear sometime in June. In the two years I've had Crohn's, I've had one fever caused by the disease, and it disappeared with a dose of Tylenol and a treatment of Remicade and was never seen again. The origin of the fevers I've been getting is undetermined. Since April, I've been playing around with med changes. I had switched from Remicade and Imuran to Humira and a low dose pill version of Methotrexate. I was only on Humira until the end of June when a combined effort of my home town GI doctor and my Boston specialist decided my continued symptoms most likely meant that the drug cocktail was not working. It was then that I started on a cocktail of Cimzia and high dose intramuscular injection Methotrexate.
Though I try to have a positive outlook living with Crohn's, these fevers have been crippling at best. They start off as chills, strong chills that cause me to seize like I was sitting naked on an ice bench in an Artic igloo. From there I become achy, my muscles tense up and my joints feel sore. This combination causes extreme lethargy and insanely decreased motivation. Sometimes, at any given point of this succession of symptoms, I don't even have a high temperature. Many times it is hours later, after an ebb and flow of these symptoms, that the thermometer reads somewhere between 99.5 and 102.6 (or something like that). Now, with these symptoms, mix back in my original Crohnie fun of unpredictable urgency, crippling stomach pain, and endless trips to the bathroom, and you have one exhausted human.
So that's where I'm at. I can't say that I've had much of a summer. I had bought a bike in April, excited to try to get back into athlete mode - used it three times. I've been to the beach once, and had to force myself and Devin to leave early in the day due to a fever. (Baking a fever in sandy 90 degree heat was probably not a good idea in the first place, but we love the beach, and my stubbornness to not let my symptoms get the best of me prompted me to go ahead with the plan). I must admit that Dev and I were able to have a fairly successful hike this past weekend, but that was only after two days of sleeping after vomiting and continual fever prevented me from going to work (I am thankful to my boss for making me stay home as it was probably good for me).
The worst part is, that during these past two months, I've had a couple of periods of 3-4 days sans fever, almost like the worlds worst tease, causing me to feel worse the next time one breaks out, frustrated by its appearance. It's hard to admit defeat, and I've never felt that way with Crohn's, but the fevers have really rocked me; making me feel less like myself. I dream of the day that these finally stop, a day when I have energy when I wake up (even if it takes a cup of tea initially), and energy when I get out of work to ride my bike, or take my dog for a walk, or any activity other than resting.
After re-reading this, I apologize for the low demeanor in which I am writing. I have hope in my doctor's plan, so the next time I decide to type out a story, I cross my fingers while promising it will be humorous and light hearted!
